Close the distance

The air in the kitchen seems to thicken, the light bending around your form as you glide forward. You close the distance with a predatory grace, stepping directly into the path of Alexis’s outstretched hand.

As her fingers pass through the threshold of your ethereal chest, the sensation isn't the jagged, biting chill of a malevolent haunting. Instead, it’s a sudden, concentrated hum—like the vibration of a high-end speaker or the static charge before a summer storm. It’s a dense, velvety coolness that sinks into her skin, traveling up her arm and settling in the pit of her stomach.

Alexis’s breath hitches. Her pupils dilate, nearly swallowing the blue of her irises. She doesn't pull away; she leans in, her lips parting as she drinks in the raw, masculine energy of your presence.

"Oh," she breathes, a small, wicked smile spreading across her face. "You're not just a 'personality,' are you? You're a... masterpiece."

Cherie looks up from the stove, a spatula in one hand. "Alexis? What are you doing? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Alexis laughs, the sound low and throaty, her eyes never leaving the empty space where she feels your heart would be. "Just the opposite, sister. I think I’ve found the first thing in this house that actually has some life in it."

She turns to the table, her hips swaying with a renewed, feline energy. She sets the bottle of tequila down with a deliberate thud. "I brought supplies. Because if we're going to survive moving into this 'orderly' mausoleum Chad calls a home, we’re going to need to loosen things up. Starting with you, Cherie."

Tyler watches his aunt with a gaze that is a little too intense, a little too lingering—the Neuro-Pulse making him feel like he can finally play in the same league as a woman like her. Alexis notices, winking at him in a way that makes his face flush a deep, frantic red.